K9 SEARCHES, KIDNAPPING, AND ARRESTING FOREIGN NATIONALS - EPISODE 007 -
TRANSCRIPT:
This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau: K9 searches, kidnapping, and arresting foreign nationals. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.
Welcome to episode number Seven of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional, quality, crime-related fiction. I use Patreon to help offset the costs of hosting this podcast and creating the transcripts by having listeners like you support me for as little as $2 per month. I even offer semi-private Q&As for my bigger patrons. How will you use Patreon to connect with your fans? Learn how to set up your own Patreon page by visiting writersdetective.com/patreon.
Welcome to episode number Seven of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional, quality, crime-related fiction. I use Patreon to help offset the costs of hosting this podcast and creating the transcripts by having listeners like you support me for as little as $2 per month. I even offer semi-private Q&As for my bigger patrons. How will you use Patreon to connect with your fans? Learn how to set up your own Patreon page by visiting writersdetective.com/patreon.
Last week, I mentioned how we conduct searches using the helicopter, and in doing so, I touched on the topic of K9 searches. This week, we're going to go more in depth on how law enforcement uses canines. As you are undoubtedly aware, one of the key uses for dogs or canines in law enforcement is detection, namely detection through their nose. I have never worked as a K9 handler. But when I was a rookie, I was a volunteer for the bite suit. So I got to attend quite a few trainings with the K9 team.
During that time, the explanation I heard for their scent abilities was similar to something like: you come home, and you smell something cooking in the kitchen, and you're pretty astute. You're like, "This smells like stew." Well, that is the human ability for scent correlation. A canine could distinguish between the different smells. Well, obviously, if it was a talking canine, that would be one thing. But their smelling ability is really to the point where they could distinguish between the ingredients in that stew.
So beyond that scent ability, what do we look for when we're trying to select a dog to use as a police canine? You might be surprised to learn that it's how much they're interested in playing with their toy. If you are a dog owner, you have undoubtedly asked, "Where's your ball?" Or, "Where's your toy?" It's not uncommon for that dog to be able to sniff out that toy or that ball pretty quickly. That's exactly what we are looking for when we're selecting detection canines. You could pretty much train a dog to smell anything.
The latest trend in law enforcement, especially in Corrections, is to train dogs to smell for cellphones. You didn't know cellphones had their own smell, did you? The basic way of understanding how scent detection works is you, as the trainer, get the dog to associate the smell you are training them on with their toy. So when the dog is selected, they're looking for one with a very high play drive, always wanting to play with their chew toy. It usually starts out by hiding that scent inside the toy, so they quickly learn that this scent leads to them getting their toy.
Later on, they search for specifically that scent. Once that scent is found, they get their toy, without having to actually hide that item in the chew toy itself. So it's not that the dog knows that they are looking for drugs, sniffing for explosives, or money, or a cell phone so much as it is that they know it's time to go play their favorite game. Occasionally, you may see a handler place a leather collar around the dog's neck prior to a search. But there's no lead on it. There's no leash. This is a larger, additional collar, and its sole purpose is to tell the dog that now we're in search mode. Now we're in play mode.
Dogs will also search off of scent articles. Those could be items from a home that belong to a missing child, or they could be an article that a suspect either left behind or even touched. They quickly figure out that that scent doesn't match any of the other people that are in the immediate area, and they will go off in search of that scent or following that scent. That kind of search is called a track, where there's a very specific scent that the dog is following. So very often you'll see their nose to the ground or up against buildings, because they're smelling where that scent has moved to.
As cars drive by or the wind blows, that scent gets pushed in various directions. So if the dog has that scent in their nose, they're going to be nose-down following that scent. If they lose that scent, you'll see the nose go up in the air, and they're going to try to figure out where it went. Different breeds have different scent detection capabilities. Bloodhounds are a favorite for long searches, suspect tracking, because their scent detection capability is incredible, especially in comparison to other dogs. Breeds like German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois are a good balance between scent-detection capabilities and also what's needed for working as a patrol or security presence.
Bloodhounds are not going to be chasing down suspects. They might lick them to death. But they're certainly not going to be engaging a fighting suspect with their teeth. However, between their nose, and the folds in their face, and their long ears that suck that smell up into their nose, I have seen bloodhound teams do incredible tracks, and by incredible, I mean, following a scent of somebody that was in a car twelve hours after a felony occurred, and tracking that scent all the way from the crime scene back to their apartment.
I've also seen bloodhounds track scents over 100 miles where we were chasing a bank robber that got on the freeway. At every exit, we would turn on our emergency lights, get the dog out of the car. The dog would pick up the scent and tell us if they got off the exit of the freeway or crossed and continued on. We did this for over 100 miles. The dog kept wanting to go, but it got to the point where it's over 100 degrees outside, and we didn't want to risk injuring the bloodhound's feet, even with booties on.
Now, your typical German Shepherd on patrol won't have that kind of scent capability, but they are certainly able to track suspects, especially ones that have fled in a very short amount of time, and they're great for searching backyards or houses, which is a different kind of search. The track is where it's a known suspect. When you're doing that area search, it's more that you have a perimeter up, like we talked about in a previous episode where I was talking about the FLIR and the helicopter, where we narrow a search area down.
So we're not necessarily tracking where a suspect went, but we are going from location to location to do a systematic search. When that's done, it's usually the canine, the K9 handler, and at least two other officers that are there to act as the arrest team when the dog finds the suspect. Another key thing to understand is the way the dogs will alert. Patrol K9s generally are going to bark. They may display some sort aggression toward the suspect to encourage them to surrender. If they're looking for drugs, they may tear at the container that it's in. If it's a center console for a car or a glove compartment or hidden in a seat, that dog may try to tear into that.
You certainly don't want that if the dog is trained to detect explosives. Explosive detection K9s are trained to do what is called a passive alert. That's where the dog will sit and not do anything. They won't move a muscle except look at the source of that scent. Labrador retrievers are becoming increasingly common as are beagles for doing this kind of passive alert, more approachable kind of canine in public areas, like airports or train stations. They'll sniff bags, but they're not going to be going after a suspect.
There are a lot of great online resources for learning about police canines and supporting them through donations. One of the ones I recommend for learning about them from a writing perspective is the United States Police Canine Association, which you can find at uspcak9.com. They have a quarterly magazine that you can access for free in PDF format called Canine Courier. I hope you check it out.
During that time, the explanation I heard for their scent abilities was similar to something like: you come home, and you smell something cooking in the kitchen, and you're pretty astute. You're like, "This smells like stew." Well, that is the human ability for scent correlation. A canine could distinguish between the different smells. Well, obviously, if it was a talking canine, that would be one thing. But their smelling ability is really to the point where they could distinguish between the ingredients in that stew.
So beyond that scent ability, what do we look for when we're trying to select a dog to use as a police canine? You might be surprised to learn that it's how much they're interested in playing with their toy. If you are a dog owner, you have undoubtedly asked, "Where's your ball?" Or, "Where's your toy?" It's not uncommon for that dog to be able to sniff out that toy or that ball pretty quickly. That's exactly what we are looking for when we're selecting detection canines. You could pretty much train a dog to smell anything.
The latest trend in law enforcement, especially in Corrections, is to train dogs to smell for cellphones. You didn't know cellphones had their own smell, did you? The basic way of understanding how scent detection works is you, as the trainer, get the dog to associate the smell you are training them on with their toy. So when the dog is selected, they're looking for one with a very high play drive, always wanting to play with their chew toy. It usually starts out by hiding that scent inside the toy, so they quickly learn that this scent leads to them getting their toy.
Later on, they search for specifically that scent. Once that scent is found, they get their toy, without having to actually hide that item in the chew toy itself. So it's not that the dog knows that they are looking for drugs, sniffing for explosives, or money, or a cell phone so much as it is that they know it's time to go play their favorite game. Occasionally, you may see a handler place a leather collar around the dog's neck prior to a search. But there's no lead on it. There's no leash. This is a larger, additional collar, and its sole purpose is to tell the dog that now we're in search mode. Now we're in play mode.
Dogs will also search off of scent articles. Those could be items from a home that belong to a missing child, or they could be an article that a suspect either left behind or even touched. They quickly figure out that that scent doesn't match any of the other people that are in the immediate area, and they will go off in search of that scent or following that scent. That kind of search is called a track, where there's a very specific scent that the dog is following. So very often you'll see their nose to the ground or up against buildings, because they're smelling where that scent has moved to.
As cars drive by or the wind blows, that scent gets pushed in various directions. So if the dog has that scent in their nose, they're going to be nose-down following that scent. If they lose that scent, you'll see the nose go up in the air, and they're going to try to figure out where it went. Different breeds have different scent detection capabilities. Bloodhounds are a favorite for long searches, suspect tracking, because their scent detection capability is incredible, especially in comparison to other dogs. Breeds like German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois are a good balance between scent-detection capabilities and also what's needed for working as a patrol or security presence.
Bloodhounds are not going to be chasing down suspects. They might lick them to death. But they're certainly not going to be engaging a fighting suspect with their teeth. However, between their nose, and the folds in their face, and their long ears that suck that smell up into their nose, I have seen bloodhound teams do incredible tracks, and by incredible, I mean, following a scent of somebody that was in a car twelve hours after a felony occurred, and tracking that scent all the way from the crime scene back to their apartment.
I've also seen bloodhounds track scents over 100 miles where we were chasing a bank robber that got on the freeway. At every exit, we would turn on our emergency lights, get the dog out of the car. The dog would pick up the scent and tell us if they got off the exit of the freeway or crossed and continued on. We did this for over 100 miles. The dog kept wanting to go, but it got to the point where it's over 100 degrees outside, and we didn't want to risk injuring the bloodhound's feet, even with booties on.
Now, your typical German Shepherd on patrol won't have that kind of scent capability, but they are certainly able to track suspects, especially ones that have fled in a very short amount of time, and they're great for searching backyards or houses, which is a different kind of search. The track is where it's a known suspect. When you're doing that area search, it's more that you have a perimeter up, like we talked about in a previous episode where I was talking about the FLIR and the helicopter, where we narrow a search area down.
So we're not necessarily tracking where a suspect went, but we are going from location to location to do a systematic search. When that's done, it's usually the canine, the K9 handler, and at least two other officers that are there to act as the arrest team when the dog finds the suspect. Another key thing to understand is the way the dogs will alert. Patrol K9s generally are going to bark. They may display some sort aggression toward the suspect to encourage them to surrender. If they're looking for drugs, they may tear at the container that it's in. If it's a center console for a car or a glove compartment or hidden in a seat, that dog may try to tear into that.
You certainly don't want that if the dog is trained to detect explosives. Explosive detection K9s are trained to do what is called a passive alert. That's where the dog will sit and not do anything. They won't move a muscle except look at the source of that scent. Labrador retrievers are becoming increasingly common as are beagles for doing this kind of passive alert, more approachable kind of canine in public areas, like airports or train stations. They'll sniff bags, but they're not going to be going after a suspect.
There are a lot of great online resources for learning about police canines and supporting them through donations. One of the ones I recommend for learning about them from a writing perspective is the United States Police Canine Association, which you can find at uspcak9.com. They have a quarterly magazine that you can access for free in PDF format called Canine Courier. I hope you check it out.
This week's second question comes from Chris Moody at chrisamoody.com. Chris writes, "I realize you mainly talk about murders. However, I'd like to write a story regarding a kidnapping. In a large city, would the choice of becoming a homicide or kidnapping detective be made at the point of when you were awarded your detective badge. Regardless of the type of case, would you say a small town would be more likely to call on the FBI for help before a large city would? What would lead up to a police force asking for the FBI's help?"
Great questions, Chris. First of all, I do mainly talk about murders because those are the most common types of inciting incidents when we're talking about mysteries. Obviously, murder-mystery is its own genre. Kidnappings are absolutely a great inciting incident and a great storyline, and much of what I talk about can really relate to kidnappings as well as murders. So before I get too far into this answer, I want to give the legal definitions of kidnapping because they vary by jurisdiction.
Where I work in California, it is Penal Code Section 207 or "two-oh-seven" is how we refer to it, which states every person who forcibly or by any other means of instilling fear, steals or takes or holds, detains, or arrests any person in this state and carries the person into another country, state or county, or into another part of the same county is guilty of kidnapping. So really what that means is you take a person and you move them to another part of the same county. So using a previous episode's conversation about corpus delicti, like when we were talking about murder versus manslaughter, we have to look at what the law for kidnapping says that we have to prove.
One of those elements of the crime is that the person was moved. So if you have a person who's being unlawfully restrained or detained, you have to establish that movement element. If you can't, then in California, it would fall under 237 of the Penal Code, which is false imprisonment, where you don't have to prove any kind of movement. You just have to show that the suspect intentionally and unlawfully restrained the victim.
Now, under federal law, Title 18 of the U.S. Code Section 1201 [NOTE: I cited the wrong section in the podcast audio - 1201 is the correct section] defines kidnapping as whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward, or otherwise any person ... and it goes on to explain exceptions talking about parental kidnapping or being involved in foreign commerce or a protected person from out of the United States, that kind of thing ... becomes a criminal charge under federal law. So that was subsection (a).
Subsection (b) says that the failure to release the victim within 24 hours after the unlawful seizure being confined, inveigled, et cetera, will create the presumption that the person has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce. So essentially that once they hit the 24-hour window, it becomes a federal case. Then it goes on to say, "Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, the fact that the presumption under this section has not yet taken effect does not preclude a federal investigation of a possible violation of this section before the 24-hour period has ended."
So that's a lot of legalese jargon to essentially say, "After 24 hours, you can safely assume, if you're a Fed that this person has been moved. Now, you have a kidnapping, and you can get involved that it falls within federal jurisdiction." Then it even says, "You don't necessarily have to wait for 24 hours to be up before the feds can get involved." So, that took a very long way to say that you have an overlapping jurisdiction. It's a crime at the state level, and it's a crime at the federal level. So you can have the local police and the FBI have concurrent jurisdiction, which means that if the suspect is arrested, they could be tried in either federal or state court.
Just like in a bank robbery situation, you have a state robbery offense, and then you also have a federal bank robbery offense of a federally insured bank. Whether the person is tried in federal court versus state court will be dependent upon a couple of different factors, usually the evidence, and how willing the prosecuting attorney whether that's the U.S. attorney or the state's attorney on the East Coast or a district attorney on the West Coast feels most comfortable and most willing to fight the case. So, this applies to kidnapping as well.
Large cities may have a homicide unit or a crime-against-persons unit. The homicide unit would very likely be the one that handles a kidnapping case that is active, especially if it's one that we think it's an abduction for ransom. It may be a different unit that handles it if it's a parental abduction, if it's a kidnapping of a biological child or a family member. But I don't know that there are necessarily kidnapping detectives at the local law enforcement level. Kidnappings certainly have the potential to turn into a homicide, especially if a ransom isn't met, or if that was the purpose of the kidnapping was to commit a homicide. So I would be willing to bet that a homicide detective would be involved in the kidnapping investigation.
The next question about small towns being more likely to call in the FBI than a larger city. Yes, I think that's accurate. The larger agencies like New York Police Department or Los Angeles Police Department where they have a lot of resources whether that's detectives or their own crime labs, they're the ones that tend to be more, "I can handle this-We can handle this ourselves," as a department and less likely to ask for help. But even those larger agencies, especially if there's an indication that the victim has been transported across state lines or out of the country, then they will definitely need the FBI's help.
But as far as going to the FBI sooner, a small town would definitely make that call a lot sooner for a number of reasons. One, the number of resources that the FBI can bring to bear, to help, and also the expertise. If you're living in a small, bedroom community of ten or fewer police officers in a nice area that doesn't have a high crime rate, their kidnapping experience may be nil. It doesn't mean that they won't do a good job. But they would certainly benefit from the expertise of an FBI agent that has case experience. You don't want to be learning these kind of investigative lessons when somebody's life is on the line.
The last part of the question was, "What would lead up to a police force asking for the FBI's help?" Like I just alluded to the manpower and experience, but also the fact that there is a concurrent jurisdiction, it kind of is already the FBI's bag, if you will, to handle that case. So it's pretty easy to turn it over to them when it would be their jurisdiction in the first place. Also, with a smaller agency, not to turn this into a money thing, but when you have a smaller agency, they don't necessarily have the financial resources to devote to a single case like this.
If we're using that previous example of a small agency, how many cops are you going to have left on the street if the majority of your people are working this kidnapping investigation? It can take a serious toll on a small police department not just in the manpower but also in the financial abilities to cover the cost of that investigation. I guess it's important to realize that in addition to the overtime cost and that kind of thing, as an investigation progresses, certain investigative techniques will cost money.
So if I start a wiretap investigation. Let's say I'm asking for an emergency wiretap on the phone that the ransom demand came in on. It's going to cost several thousand dollars for the phone company to hook up the wiretapping setup. As the small police agency, I have to be able to cover the cost of that and pay the phone company to be able to get this investigation going off the ground. That's not one of the widely reported aspects of a wiretap investigation. I think the last wiretap case I was involved in, it was something like $1,000 for every 30 days of monitoring.
So if you're up on multiple phones, and it's a multi-month investigation, it can get very expensive very quickly especially for a small town that has a limited budget. So I hope that helps, Chris, and I'm looking forward to finding out more about your story. Like I said, this podcast is not just about murders, it's just whatever you guys want to have the answers to.
Thanks for the question, Chris. You can find Chris at chrisamoody.com and you'll be able to find a link to this in the show notes, which you can find at writersdetective.com/7.
Great questions, Chris. First of all, I do mainly talk about murders because those are the most common types of inciting incidents when we're talking about mysteries. Obviously, murder-mystery is its own genre. Kidnappings are absolutely a great inciting incident and a great storyline, and much of what I talk about can really relate to kidnappings as well as murders. So before I get too far into this answer, I want to give the legal definitions of kidnapping because they vary by jurisdiction.
Where I work in California, it is Penal Code Section 207 or "two-oh-seven" is how we refer to it, which states every person who forcibly or by any other means of instilling fear, steals or takes or holds, detains, or arrests any person in this state and carries the person into another country, state or county, or into another part of the same county is guilty of kidnapping. So really what that means is you take a person and you move them to another part of the same county. So using a previous episode's conversation about corpus delicti, like when we were talking about murder versus manslaughter, we have to look at what the law for kidnapping says that we have to prove.
One of those elements of the crime is that the person was moved. So if you have a person who's being unlawfully restrained or detained, you have to establish that movement element. If you can't, then in California, it would fall under 237 of the Penal Code, which is false imprisonment, where you don't have to prove any kind of movement. You just have to show that the suspect intentionally and unlawfully restrained the victim.
Now, under federal law, Title 18 of the U.S. Code Section 1201 [NOTE: I cited the wrong section in the podcast audio - 1201 is the correct section] defines kidnapping as whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward, or otherwise any person ... and it goes on to explain exceptions talking about parental kidnapping or being involved in foreign commerce or a protected person from out of the United States, that kind of thing ... becomes a criminal charge under federal law. So that was subsection (a).
Subsection (b) says that the failure to release the victim within 24 hours after the unlawful seizure being confined, inveigled, et cetera, will create the presumption that the person has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce. So essentially that once they hit the 24-hour window, it becomes a federal case. Then it goes on to say, "Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, the fact that the presumption under this section has not yet taken effect does not preclude a federal investigation of a possible violation of this section before the 24-hour period has ended."
So that's a lot of legalese jargon to essentially say, "After 24 hours, you can safely assume, if you're a Fed that this person has been moved. Now, you have a kidnapping, and you can get involved that it falls within federal jurisdiction." Then it even says, "You don't necessarily have to wait for 24 hours to be up before the feds can get involved." So, that took a very long way to say that you have an overlapping jurisdiction. It's a crime at the state level, and it's a crime at the federal level. So you can have the local police and the FBI have concurrent jurisdiction, which means that if the suspect is arrested, they could be tried in either federal or state court.
Just like in a bank robbery situation, you have a state robbery offense, and then you also have a federal bank robbery offense of a federally insured bank. Whether the person is tried in federal court versus state court will be dependent upon a couple of different factors, usually the evidence, and how willing the prosecuting attorney whether that's the U.S. attorney or the state's attorney on the East Coast or a district attorney on the West Coast feels most comfortable and most willing to fight the case. So, this applies to kidnapping as well.
Large cities may have a homicide unit or a crime-against-persons unit. The homicide unit would very likely be the one that handles a kidnapping case that is active, especially if it's one that we think it's an abduction for ransom. It may be a different unit that handles it if it's a parental abduction, if it's a kidnapping of a biological child or a family member. But I don't know that there are necessarily kidnapping detectives at the local law enforcement level. Kidnappings certainly have the potential to turn into a homicide, especially if a ransom isn't met, or if that was the purpose of the kidnapping was to commit a homicide. So I would be willing to bet that a homicide detective would be involved in the kidnapping investigation.
The next question about small towns being more likely to call in the FBI than a larger city. Yes, I think that's accurate. The larger agencies like New York Police Department or Los Angeles Police Department where they have a lot of resources whether that's detectives or their own crime labs, they're the ones that tend to be more, "I can handle this-We can handle this ourselves," as a department and less likely to ask for help. But even those larger agencies, especially if there's an indication that the victim has been transported across state lines or out of the country, then they will definitely need the FBI's help.
But as far as going to the FBI sooner, a small town would definitely make that call a lot sooner for a number of reasons. One, the number of resources that the FBI can bring to bear, to help, and also the expertise. If you're living in a small, bedroom community of ten or fewer police officers in a nice area that doesn't have a high crime rate, their kidnapping experience may be nil. It doesn't mean that they won't do a good job. But they would certainly benefit from the expertise of an FBI agent that has case experience. You don't want to be learning these kind of investigative lessons when somebody's life is on the line.
The last part of the question was, "What would lead up to a police force asking for the FBI's help?" Like I just alluded to the manpower and experience, but also the fact that there is a concurrent jurisdiction, it kind of is already the FBI's bag, if you will, to handle that case. So it's pretty easy to turn it over to them when it would be their jurisdiction in the first place. Also, with a smaller agency, not to turn this into a money thing, but when you have a smaller agency, they don't necessarily have the financial resources to devote to a single case like this.
If we're using that previous example of a small agency, how many cops are you going to have left on the street if the majority of your people are working this kidnapping investigation? It can take a serious toll on a small police department not just in the manpower but also in the financial abilities to cover the cost of that investigation. I guess it's important to realize that in addition to the overtime cost and that kind of thing, as an investigation progresses, certain investigative techniques will cost money.
So if I start a wiretap investigation. Let's say I'm asking for an emergency wiretap on the phone that the ransom demand came in on. It's going to cost several thousand dollars for the phone company to hook up the wiretapping setup. As the small police agency, I have to be able to cover the cost of that and pay the phone company to be able to get this investigation going off the ground. That's not one of the widely reported aspects of a wiretap investigation. I think the last wiretap case I was involved in, it was something like $1,000 for every 30 days of monitoring.
So if you're up on multiple phones, and it's a multi-month investigation, it can get very expensive very quickly especially for a small town that has a limited budget. So I hope that helps, Chris, and I'm looking forward to finding out more about your story. Like I said, this podcast is not just about murders, it's just whatever you guys want to have the answers to.
Thanks for the question, Chris. You can find Chris at chrisamoody.com and you'll be able to find a link to this in the show notes, which you can find at writersdetective.com/7.
What do Algeria, Brunei, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom ... and let's throw in Zimbabwe as well. What do those countries all have in common? Well, if you're a national of those countries and you're arrested in the United States, it's mandatory that the law enforcement agency that arrested you notify your country's embassy. Actually, there's a pretty sizable list, which brings us to our next topic. If you are a member of the Writer's Detective Facebook group [JOIN US!], you may have seen a question regarding arresting foreign nationals.
The question is "what rights would a foreign national half if charged with attempted murder?" There was a little bit of confusion about what the poster meant with this question because the answer is that anybody arrested in the United States has the same rights as anyone else, meaning just because you're a foreign national it doesn't mean that you don't receive the same protections under the Constitution as a U.S. citizen for criminal investigations.
But it led me to post a document that the U.S. Department of State issued to law enforcement as a training resource to explain the process of notifying an embassy that one of their foreign nationals has been arrested, when it's required, and when it's up to the suspect to decide whether or not that should happen. If you go to the show notes, you'll be able to find this document because it's an open-source document, it's a PDF, and it's not limited to For Official Use Only. So if you'd like to check that out, it may help you understand that process of what questions are asked and whether the law enforcement agency has to notify the embassy of that foreign national that's being arrested.
This leads me to another similar topic that I've written about in the past, but I haven't addressed it here on the podcast, that being: diplomatic immunity. I have Lethal Weapon 2 to thank for introducing me to this concept of diplomatic immunity. But unfortunately, it's confused most of the moviegoers on that concept ever since. So in the show notes, I've also included another open-source document created by the United States Department of State called Diplomatic and Consular Immunity: Guidance for Law Enforcement and Judicial Authorities. It's a PDF, and it explains who in an embassy or a consulate actually gets diplomatic immunity, and to what extent.
The reason we have diplomatic immunity is because it is ... Well, first of all, it's a matter of reciprocity. By not arresting foreign diplomats in the United States, it's a quid pro quo that our diplomats will not get arrested in those countries. Now, this is especially important if the country in question has a history of corruption or a less-than-stellar human rights record, and it also prevents a hosting nation from swaying diplomatic talks by detaining diplomats or consulate officers from their duties in an effort to sway those negotiations.
The other key thing that's important to understand is that just because a person has diplomatic immunity doesn't mean that they can never be prosecuted for the crime. If a diplomat commits a murder, they may not be legally able to be taken into custody from the perspective of the law enforcement agency. But that doesn't prevent the law enforcement agency from trying that suspect in absentia and getting a conviction. So why would you do that? Well the diplomatic immunity protection only exists while that person holds that office.
If it becomes clear that this diplomat is a murderer or a serial rapist or whatever it is, once they leave that post, which may happen sooner if the host country figures out that that diplomat is evil ... you would think or you would hope ... that then they can be prosecuted once they're no longer filling that diplomatic post. Or if there was a conviction in that trial, then he could be taken into custody upon leaving that post.
And of course, if it's truly a matter of the diplomat being a murderer, I'm sure the State Department of the United States would have some pretty spectacular talks with that host nation about the role that this person is playing in their diplomatic mission and putting some pressure on releasing them from that and getting them out from that diplomatic immunity. I hope this sparks some story ideas and may even lead to additional questions. If you have those questions, be sure to send them to me at writersdetective.com/podcast.
The question is "what rights would a foreign national half if charged with attempted murder?" There was a little bit of confusion about what the poster meant with this question because the answer is that anybody arrested in the United States has the same rights as anyone else, meaning just because you're a foreign national it doesn't mean that you don't receive the same protections under the Constitution as a U.S. citizen for criminal investigations.
But it led me to post a document that the U.S. Department of State issued to law enforcement as a training resource to explain the process of notifying an embassy that one of their foreign nationals has been arrested, when it's required, and when it's up to the suspect to decide whether or not that should happen. If you go to the show notes, you'll be able to find this document because it's an open-source document, it's a PDF, and it's not limited to For Official Use Only. So if you'd like to check that out, it may help you understand that process of what questions are asked and whether the law enforcement agency has to notify the embassy of that foreign national that's being arrested.
This leads me to another similar topic that I've written about in the past, but I haven't addressed it here on the podcast, that being: diplomatic immunity. I have Lethal Weapon 2 to thank for introducing me to this concept of diplomatic immunity. But unfortunately, it's confused most of the moviegoers on that concept ever since. So in the show notes, I've also included another open-source document created by the United States Department of State called Diplomatic and Consular Immunity: Guidance for Law Enforcement and Judicial Authorities. It's a PDF, and it explains who in an embassy or a consulate actually gets diplomatic immunity, and to what extent.
The reason we have diplomatic immunity is because it is ... Well, first of all, it's a matter of reciprocity. By not arresting foreign diplomats in the United States, it's a quid pro quo that our diplomats will not get arrested in those countries. Now, this is especially important if the country in question has a history of corruption or a less-than-stellar human rights record, and it also prevents a hosting nation from swaying diplomatic talks by detaining diplomats or consulate officers from their duties in an effort to sway those negotiations.
The other key thing that's important to understand is that just because a person has diplomatic immunity doesn't mean that they can never be prosecuted for the crime. If a diplomat commits a murder, they may not be legally able to be taken into custody from the perspective of the law enforcement agency. But that doesn't prevent the law enforcement agency from trying that suspect in absentia and getting a conviction. So why would you do that? Well the diplomatic immunity protection only exists while that person holds that office.
If it becomes clear that this diplomat is a murderer or a serial rapist or whatever it is, once they leave that post, which may happen sooner if the host country figures out that that diplomat is evil ... you would think or you would hope ... that then they can be prosecuted once they're no longer filling that diplomatic post. Or if there was a conviction in that trial, then he could be taken into custody upon leaving that post.
And of course, if it's truly a matter of the diplomat being a murderer, I'm sure the State Department of the United States would have some pretty spectacular talks with that host nation about the role that this person is playing in their diplomatic mission and putting some pressure on releasing them from that and getting them out from that diplomatic immunity. I hope this sparks some story ideas and may even lead to additional questions. If you have those questions, be sure to send them to me at writersdetective.com/podcast.
I started helping writers back in 2015, and that was when I was introduced to the concept of having a platform, AKA a blog, and having a list. More precisely and what I mean by that is a mailing list of fans that I could email. Back then, I did what everyone else fumbling through this process did. I joined a mailing list service that offered a free option. Eventually, I got to a point where my list had a few hundred people on it, and I was getting frustrated with the mailing list service that I was using at the time.
The one I was on was really designed for businesses that were selling a product to consumers and definitely not set up for writers or bloggers trying to foster growing a community with fans. That was when I discovered ConvertKit*. It was designed for creatives, writers, bloggers, artists, podcasters. I loved how easy it was to use, and that it was really created for people like you and me. I really love the software. But to be honest, deciding to pay for a mailing list service rather than using the clunky free one of a different company was really a big decision. It seemed daunting, but it made the leap.
I imagine if you haven't made this leap yet, you're probably feeling the same way about transitioning, from a free mailing list service that works just okay, to a service like ConvertKit that is designed precisely for creatives like fiction writers that want to build buzz for their self-published books. Well, ConvertKit has now made making that leap a lot less scary. ConvertKit has introduced Creator Pass*. Creator Pass is four courses: Build. Launch. Grow. and Thrive. Plus it includes a full year of ConvertKit mailing list service and an awesome online community of coaching and support.
Now, a lot of companies claim that they have community and support, but I have never seen a company more committed to that than ConvertKit. I can't say enough how awesome and supportive ConvertKit is as a company. So anyway, if you want to join the ConvertKit family and make the leap a lot less daunting, you can't beat Creator Pass. To learn more about the Build, Launch, Grow, and Thrive courses, plus the full year of ConvertKit service and the online support community, visit writersdetectivebureau.com/creatorpass*. If you're driving right now, the link will be in the show notes.
The one I was on was really designed for businesses that were selling a product to consumers and definitely not set up for writers or bloggers trying to foster growing a community with fans. That was when I discovered ConvertKit*. It was designed for creatives, writers, bloggers, artists, podcasters. I loved how easy it was to use, and that it was really created for people like you and me. I really love the software. But to be honest, deciding to pay for a mailing list service rather than using the clunky free one of a different company was really a big decision. It seemed daunting, but it made the leap.
I imagine if you haven't made this leap yet, you're probably feeling the same way about transitioning, from a free mailing list service that works just okay, to a service like ConvertKit that is designed precisely for creatives like fiction writers that want to build buzz for their self-published books. Well, ConvertKit has now made making that leap a lot less scary. ConvertKit has introduced Creator Pass*. Creator Pass is four courses: Build. Launch. Grow. and Thrive. Plus it includes a full year of ConvertKit mailing list service and an awesome online community of coaching and support.
Now, a lot of companies claim that they have community and support, but I have never seen a company more committed to that than ConvertKit. I can't say enough how awesome and supportive ConvertKit is as a company. So anyway, if you want to join the ConvertKit family and make the leap a lot less daunting, you can't beat Creator Pass. To learn more about the Build, Launch, Grow, and Thrive courses, plus the full year of ConvertKit service and the online support community, visit writersdetectivebureau.com/creatorpass*. If you're driving right now, the link will be in the show notes.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe. If you belong to a writer's group in person or online, I would love it if you'd share this podcast. This podcast is created for you so don't be shy and submit your crime fiction questions or just say "Hello" at writersdetective.com/podcast.
Thanks again for listening. Write well.
Thanks again for listening. Write well.
EPISODE LINKS:
- Author: Chris A. Moody - chrisamoody.com
- Resource: U.S. Police Canine Association
- Resource: U.S. Department of State - Consular Notification and Access
- Resource: U.S. Department of State - Diplomatic and Consular Immunity: Guidance for Law Enforcement and Judicial Authorities
- Patreon* - Create your own Patreon page to let your supporters give you money for your creations.
- Support the Writer's Detective Bureau through Patreon for as little as $2/month.
- Grammarly* - The free spelling and grammar checker. (I use the free Google Chrome extension.)
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- ConvertKit's Creator Pass* - Four online courses for building your mailing list plus one full year of ConvertKit service!
- Submit your own questions to the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast.
PATREON PATRONS THAT MADE THIS EPISODE POSSIBLE
- Joan Raymond Writing and Design - joanraymondwriting.com
- Guy Alton
- Anonymous (you may not want your name shown, but I truly appreciate your support!)
- Natasha Bajema - natashabajema.com
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The fine print: If you're reading this, you're a detail person (like me) looking for what this really costs. The answer: It's free.
I only charge for manuscript review and traditional technical advising services. Contact me for inquiries of this nature. Terms & Conditions
I only charge for manuscript review and traditional technical advising services. Contact me for inquiries of this nature. Terms & Conditions